The American Atheist AANews list reported on 3/13 that the American Legion, the largest war veteran’s group in the country, has announced its support for a law, introduced by Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., that would forbid judges from awarding compensatory fees in Establishment Clause cases. What also disturbs me is the group representing war veterans, the same people who like to claim they fought for our rights, would support such un-American law in the name of religion. When did special rights for religion become more important than the Constitution?
Tag: civil rights
I was one of two to guest for the hour. The other guest was Eddie Tabash. He is a constitutional lawyer, associated with the Council of Secular Humanism, American Atheists, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. He is a well known person in the Humanist movement. So I had to ask myself – why am I even on the show? My first radio show didn’t start out on a perfect note. I nodded off waiting for the producer to call me 10 minutes before the show so I missed the call. I woke up at 5 minutes to show time and the producer’s third call. I’m sure he started to breathe again when I answered the phone.
In response to the passage on February 24th of an outright ban on abortion from the South Dakota legislature, an Internet based church, The Church of Reality, has issued an edict that the ban violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the church’s exercise of its religion. I loved the idea of using a law like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1993)( aka RFRA) against laws that are passed mainly to legalize someone’s religious agenda. Something, however smelled fishy.
I will be a guest on a radio show called “Interconnect” on Monday 3/6/06 from 9 AM to 10 AM eastern time. The show is hosted by WMUB at Miami University of Ohio in Oxford. Edward Tabash from CSH and Americans United will be the other guest. The topic is “Civil Rights for Atheists”
This morning an essay Penn Jillette wrote appeared on the NPR website that sums up how we non-believers find a purpose in life especially when this life is all we have.
Atheists may not be victims in the sense that Christians can be victims in countries like China but Atheists (and most non-believers) do suffer from the negative attitude as illustrated in the article by Leo that I started this posting with.
Obviously Leo was complaining about people complaining and he included Atheists in that lot as if our concerns are trivial.
There aren’t too many groups these days that one would hear or tolerate such negative attitudes expressed so publicly without any backlash. Imagine if a popular TV host said on the air she wouldn’t vote for any one who was a Muslim or Christian with the inference that viewers follow her advice.